#connie's documentation is in shambles. he'll never recover from this.

[vullcanica]

@s4ints , x

he prudently counts her 'tact' as achievement. it's all he can do not to mourn a time before it. for all their attempts, Cora is definitively unsuited for diplomacy and they're very much immune to illusions of consideration, so none of this is working. still, shrewd of her to turn it on them. there's rueful, parental sort of misplaced pride about Constance as he speaks.

❞ ...it's more a fact, than an opinion. ❝ they correct impassively, leaning back in their office chair, hands joined upon a crossed knee. the desk sinks down once she vacates its surface, shifting and turning like a rubick's cube collapsing into itself, taking the documentation down with it. it leaves them undivided, face-to-face, overcome with air of severity unbefitting to the situation at hand. trust the Tower to be dramatic about this. Constance knows a deadlock when they see it and Cora's hardly in trouble. it's been cut and dried between them for centuries now. she has to start a war. he has to finish it.

❞ and going is definitely ill-advised at best. all data points to high likelihood of this turning apocalyptic. ❝

the Tower says so. and the Tower is never wrong. never, not once, not since the very dawn of the universe. once upon a time it said vesuvius will rain death and fire and so vesuvius did. it said a plague will reap millions and so a plague did. if it says the unrest in the one part of the world Cora has her eye set on is so vicious and so contingent to a tender thread of temporary impasse that one tip of the scale would trigger a war so brutal it would lead to great destruction, then.. well, Connie's willing to bet money on it. and peace is a fragile thing not meant for a child's hand. or war's. unfortunately for Constance, Cora happens to be both. and that puts a spanner in the works for their supernatural brand of HR equivalent duties.

the best he can do is go and estimate the collateral.

first, they venture to tell her as much in a way that doesn't further ignite the ever-present spark of defiance they don't know which part of her to attribute to - child, or war.

❞ promise me at least a few days' leeway to get documentation in order. so that I can make sure it's.. controlled. ❝ the irony of asking War Itself to wait out the implementation of some safety measures isn't lost on them. Constance clarifies: ❝ i would hate for us to catch each other on the battlefield. ❝ what they both do isn't pretty. and while they've both beared witness before, there's a thin veneer separating the civilian disguises as it is. reuniting in the aftermath makes pretences easier, a very human concept Connie's found himself growing fond of.

they are Balance and War, until they're not, arranged in his office, speaking of apocalypses like some poor school mark or petty trouble - a concerned parent and a willful daughter. Consance inclines their head and gives Cora a pointed look.

❞ please. ❝